Healed Kobe saved Lakers season by playing through wrist pain

BOSTON – The joke in the current commercial so loosely related to Nike sneakers is an all-knowing Kobe Bryant replying to an innocent question from "Kobe System" disciple Kanye West with this answer:

"You're welcome."

And that's it.

Good stuff. Good because it's rooted in so many things real: Bryant's cockiness, his drive, his ego, his edge.

What if I told you that Bryant boarded the Lakers' team bus in Boston on Wednesday, declared the torn ligament in his right wrist healed despite having not missed a single one of the first 25 games of the season, looked at his teammates and just said: "You're welcome."

Rather believable, I'd say. Not in any way true – except for the wrist being healed, which he revealed to me after practice – but it's certainly the sort of thing Bryant might say.

Also believable is that no one is actually saying, "Thank you," to Bryant right now – especially not after he torpedoed the Lakers' chances in Philadelphia on some assumption that feeling wrist improvement, eclipsing Shaquille O'Neal on the all-time scoring chart and standing on his home Philly turf meant the script of him playing God at game's end was preordained.

The Lakers are also just 14-11 – another reason it's not Thanksgiving in the Lakers' house right now.

Remember how underwhelming their efforts felt last season as they half-stepped in the direction of their three-peat? They still started 30-11.

The year before that, they were 37-11. The year before that, 48-11.

And yet ... it could be so much worse now.

The Lakers aren't irreparably gone. They are certainly not great, but they have figured more than a few things out in a relatively short period of time. When it comes to Mike Brown's defensive principles, those synapses for connecting the learning in their brains have been strengthened quite quickly, the team otherwise leaning heavily on Bryant's shooting for enough offense.

Let's just stop and consider where the Lakers would be if Bryant had taken the safe route – as a sane and rational man would have – and rested his wrist so it could heal for sure.

Especially amid all the chatter about Bryant aging and the risks he faced in trying to play through the injury, did it not make a ton of sense for Bryant to sit out?

And if he had sat out, just think about how much team growth would not have happened around him. And consider the downtown San Francisco-style uphill struggle the Lakers would be facing just to make the eight-team playoffs in a Western Conference where 13 teams currently sit at .500 or better.

If you think the attack has been stagnant at times with Bryant, the idea of playing without him and having no perimeter creator whatsoever is so dreadful that Brown would be hooked up to a lie detector test right now if he continued to say he understood basketball offense.

"If you can play through injuries and heal while you're going through them," Bryant said Wednesday as he discussed the wrist recovery with me, "that's the best-case scenario."

Even more than in past seasons with Phil Jackson's favored teams, Bryant's determination to punch the clock has been invaluable to these Lakers, who now at least have a chance.

They don't have any depth, they need Steve Blake (or a guard acquired from the outside) to play really well, and they had better establish some poise. But Bryant's overall verdict is far from damning: "Not as bad as the record indicates," he said.

Their chemistry? It's OK and still growing.

Even after Andrew Bynum didn't get the ball during Bryant's wayward stretch run Monday night, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer he joined Bryant and some friends in the wee hours at Delilah's.

Delilah's is "The Gentlemen's Club and Steakhouse in Philadelphia."

Shaq, one of the few people in the world who actually uses the term "gentlemen's club" in his regular life, would be so proud of them!

(While you're pondering Bryant's personal status, I'll note that Bynum already has it in mind that he's not getting married until he retires from basketball.)

Bynum was on "The Dan Patrick Show" on Wednesday describing Bryant's influence on him as "huge, even now ... telling me snippets of things to do about this and that, footwork, watching film and keep staying aggressive."

The much-maligned Lakers are nearing a winning groove, so prepare yourself. Bryant and Blake are healthy, and by the time the playoffs arrive, the Lakers might actually look pretty good again.

That, of course, is why Bryant played through the pain. The gain to him is not just the pride in the job, it's in the ride reaching a meaningful destination.

"I'm obsessed about it," Bryant said about another NBA championship. "It's one of those things. That is what I play for. I can think of nothing else."

And because Bryant kept working – on the court, in the training room and in his personal hours wearing ice, kinesiology tape, a brace or that funky oven mitt – there's still hope for the Lakers.

Only because Bryant kept working, the Lakers are not still imagining how to build.